Her guards and the assistant who'd shown George in-she looked like the kindliest of grandmothers in her baggy sweaters and SAS shoes but was undoubtedly one of David's well-placed spies-would look upon her with pity for being so far gone.

He should have been a parson, or an Oxford don, or a waiter, for he was the kindliest, softest-voiced old stick who ever spared a fellow-creature's feelings - that was what was wrong with him, that he couldn't for the life of him say an unkind word, or set anyone down.

Had the old man chanced to raise his head for a moment, the visitor would have seen, framed in long and snowy hair and beard, one of the finest, kindliest, sweetest, strongest, grandest faces that ever gladdened the eyes of man.

Yet as I happened to be before the Miniature School, some kind artists invited me in to use their bathroom to wash myself, offering me a scarf to cover my bare arms, and even showed me some mediocre miniatures (even these fakes) -- and then of course the kindliest young man said, with a bow:

Both the brothers, it may be here remarked, had a very emphatic and earnest delivery; both had lost nearly the same teeth, which imparted the same peculiarity to their speech; and both spoke as if, besides possessing the utmost serenity of mind that the kindliest and most unsuspecting nature could bestow, they had, in collecting the plums from